Crazy Rich Asians: Is The Chinese Cast An Accurate Representation?

- insert high SES joke here -

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the trailer for Crazy Rich Asians dropped earlier this week and people have a lot of thoughts about it.

Since the movie is set in Singapore, it’s only natural that it’s generating a lot of hype amongst us at the moment. Over in the US, Asian-Americans are generally excited for the first Hollywood movie to feature an all-Asian lead cast in 25 years. However, here in Singapore, we seem to have very mixed feelings about this movie. People have pointed out that the lack of minorities featured is problematic in itself, and isn’t an accurate representation of Singapore. Another major gripe that people have is that you couldn’t hear a peep of Singlish anywhere in the trailer. Here are a few different takes on the movie’s cast so far…

Adrianna Tan, CEO of Wobe (an app that enables low-income groups in Indonesia to set up a small business) and founder of non-profit Gyanada Foundation (which provides girls in India with bond-free scholarships), took to Twitter to give her take on the debate around Crazy Rich Asians, and why the movie isn’t wrong to feature a largely Chinese cast who speak without a Singaporean accent.

Also, she gave a pretty interesting history lesson at the same time. Scroll through the gallery below for her thread of tweets.

Asian-Americans and Asians based in Asia are going to see #crazyrichasians differently. Some AA are happy to see representation in Hollywood; others, more versed in social justice see colonialism of East Asians in East Asia.

In Singapore, like in other colonies, divide and rule extended also to various ethnic groups. These precede current understanding of ethno/national borders. It came down to what type of Chinese, Indian, you were.

Unlike in many other places, wealth among southern Chinese has networked effects. Descendent of rich merchant family from Java last century may well occupy same social class as a Singapore citizen today. Ditto for HK, Philippines, Thailand.

It bears remembering that 'Jews of the East' has been used to clobber Chinese communities and foster anti-Chinese sentiments; first by European colonial powers, which carries on today sometimes encouraged by existing powers.

Obviously, the real world of #crazyrichasians is overwhelmingly Chinese. That's accurate. This world sometimes intersects with the world of Singaporean / Malaysian Indian merchant families, which is usually Sindhi.

This is not the world of the Chinese Singaporean friend you think is rich, who drives a car and has a condo and goes to Iceland on vacation. This is 'live in the Waldorf-Astoria for 1 year while attending an exchange program from other ivy league college' rich (true story I know)

It's about the fear of 'coming down in the world', like we saw during the late 90s financial crisis (and my classmates grumbled about having to downgrade to a bungalow in the bad side of Bukit Timah – lol)

On the other end of the argument, local playwright Alfian Sa’at criticised the movie for its “brown backdrop people”, and question whether “a win for representation mean replacing white people with white people wannabes”.

There’s also been some comparisons of Crazy Rich Asians to Black Panther, but as Statement (the brand behind the super Singaporean slogan tees) founder Visakan Veerasamy pointed out, the movie’s themes and motivations are vastly different from Black Panther’s celebration of black culture.

TL;DR: there are a lot of different takes on Crazy Rich Asians castings so far, but whatever yours is, please don’t call it our version of the Black Panther.